


cold nights make staying alert so hard

by herotoon



Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Father-Daughter Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Missing Scene, comment any fic prompts yall wanna give me... i wanna write more about these 3 but im low on ideas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-10-04 02:10:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17295710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herotoon/pseuds/herotoon
Summary: How Noir found Spiderham and Peni, and a new reason to keep fighting.





	cold nights make staying alert so hard

Noir always figured there was just something wrong with him, honestly. 

It would be just another part of himself he didn’t know how to fix, another crack in his soul. His entire life, everything felt dull and almost stunted- like he was missing some part of himself and if he tried hard enough he could claw at it, just below the surface.

But it was so  _ tiring. _

He couldn’t bring himself to cry no matter how much loss he experienced. He didn’t feel his stomach lurch at the sight of something unspeakable anymore. He never smiled. Never laughed.

It wasn’t that he forced himself to remain stoic. It was more of an effort to actually do those things than it was to not do them. He kept his mask and his goggles on as often as possible, avoiding his scarred reflection and the bags under his eyes. He was always either oversleeping until his head was pounding or laying awake until his alarm went off in the morning.

He’d sit down to work and before he could get a single line down he would look at the clock and realize it had been hours.

It worried him, but it was his normal.

Alone was his normal.

* * *

When the portal opened up, he wasn’t sure what it was, but it introduced something to him that he had never been familiar with.

_ Color. _

The thing warped around him in shades of violet and green that he was unfamiliar with, he felt like he was in a dream. At first he thought he had finally died of exhaustion, but he could suddenly feel snow crunching beneath his feet and he touched his face and no- he was alive. 

He was alive.

* * *

He took to the alleyways. Being in the open made him nervous, and the color was starting to make his head hurt. He eventually sat down, slumping against a brick wall, trying to keep himself warm.

There was a soft whispering from above him.   
“ _ He’s like us! _ ”

“ _ Shh, stay quiet.” _

He stood up, his trench coat billowing out behind him. His hand balled into a fist and he tensed.

“Well, hey there, mister tall dark and handsome! You’re looking as out of place as I am ‘round these parts!”   
**HONK** **_!!_ **

Noir’s fist made contact with something that went absolutely  _ flying _ across the alley, bouncing from one wall to the other like an over-inflated basketball. Noir watched, dumbstruck by the scene before the thing bounced directly into his face with a  **CRACK** .

But a broken nose was the least of his worries, because there was a pig in his arms and a teenager leaning over him and checking him for injuries and-

_ A low buzz in the back of his head, like he knew these people. _ _   
_ “You’re like  _ me, _ ” he breathed, eyes wide behind his glasses. The pig rubbed a sore spot on his cheek and then rapidly shook his head, suddenly clear of all injury. “Sort of.”

* * *

They decided to go to a little ice cream parlor nearby, the teenager (named Peni, as he found out) bringing her massive robot inside the store. The person behind the counter looked beyond exhausted.

Peni got raspberry cheesecake flavor, Ham got birthday cake, and Noir got dark chocolate. They all happily dug in until-

“That’ll be $12.87.”

So they dashed. Turns out SP\\\dr can go around 80 mph if it tries. Which is fast enough for the three of them to end up skittering to the top of the empire state building, sitting and eating their ice cream together.

Noir was staring out over the flickering lights of the city when he felt a light tap on his shoulder. He turned to see Peni, with a spoonful of her ice cream held out towards him.

“Wanna try some?”

He blinked and slowly lifted up his mask, reaching to grab the spoon, but she pressed forward, sticking the ice cream right into his mouth. He coughed for a moment and Peni pulled her hand back. “Sorry!”

“Hey, gimme some, too,” Ham insisted, scrambling onto Noir’s lap to get a bite.

Noir leaned back and pulled his mask off, squinting against the bright lights below. Everything blurred without his goggles, but he needed a break from being under the mask.

Ham watched him do this, admittedly curious about what he looked like under all that shadow and edgy lighting.

And what he saw made his heart jump, just a little. Noir had a sharp jawline and dark eyes, scars deep across his face, his hair charmingly messed up from being under his suit so long. He had some dried blood around his nose, probably from the good hit he accidentally got in when they met. Ham just stared, studying Noir’s face like he’d be quizzed on it.

He didn’t notice what he was doing until Peni laughed behind her hand, then he noticed the hearts piling up around his head, waving them away, surprised and thankful that Noir hadn’t noticed. He was too busy staring out over the city.

“Hey, kid?”

Peni looked up. “Yeah?”

“What, uh.. What color is the sky right now?”

She looked up. “Dark blue?”

He hummed and leaned back on his hands. Ham climbed up and sat on his left shoulder, somehow feeling like hardly anything. Noir was smiling. Ham could feel his heartbeat behind his ribs, louder than anything he had ever heard. Jeez.

“What are we gonna do?”

Peni shrugged. “Find someone we all know and ask them for help?”

* * *

To make a long story short:

They did just that.

* * *

The three (four, counting SP//dr) of them sat around the underground lair, playing Uno. Peni was winning by a landslide, and Noir was losing.

He elbowed Ham in the ribs lightly. “Psst.”

Ham looked up.

“What color is this one again…?”

Ham looked over. “That’d be blue, Casanova.”

“My name is  _ Peter _ .”   
“So’s mine, I’m callin’ you by nicknames until I find one that sticks.”

“Mm,” he put down a card.

“Can’t play that one, Batman.”

“Damn it.”

* * *

It had been a full day and they were still waiting. For what, none of them knew, but their spider senses told them to stay put. They all decided to lay down on the couches and take a well deserved nap.

Noir couldn’t sleep. He never could, when he was waiting for something, even if it took weeks or months. 

Ham couldn’t sleep either, so he made his way over to where Noir was, laying on his chest and looking up at him, sometimes fiddling with the buttons on his coat. He was small, but somehow heavier than earlier. He was warm, too. 

“So’s that mask a part of you?”

Ham looked up. “‘Course not,” and he pulled his mask off, stuffing it in a pocket.

His eyes were blue, almost. But not quite. Blue-green, Noir realized, pulling his own mask back.

Their eyes locked.

It felt like the room had froze

But then there was a short scream from Peni’s side of the room and she sat up, gripping the fabric of her shirt hard and breathing like she was running out of air. SP//der whirred in concern and wrapped itself around her defensively, pressing its screen against her face.

She sniffled. “I’m okay, I’m okay…”

Noir sat up, carrying Ham in his arms as he quickly crossed the room to crouch at her side. Ham took a moment to climb up and sit on his shoulder like a parrot.

“You good, kid?”

Peni nodded quickly, despite her shaking shoulders and inability to meet his eyes. Noir scooted a bit closer. “Is it alright if I touch you? I get nightmares too- I don’t wanna make it worse.”

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye for a moment, then lunged at him, hugging him tightly and burying her face in the soft fabric of his trenchcoat. Ham slid down and hugged her as well, Noir slowly pulling them all onto the couch and sitting down. 

They just laid there for a while, clinging to each other, until they all fell comfortably asleep.

* * *

When Noir woke up, a hand knitted blanket had been carefully placed around them. Peni had her head in his lap and Ham was curled against his chest with his sweater balled up under his head like a pillow, little Z’s floating above his head alongside some hearts. Noir let a soft sigh out, tilting his head back.

It felt like nothing he had experienced before. Like seeing color for the first time all over again.

He loved them.

And he would do everything in his power to get them home safely.

**Author's Note:**

> please leave a comment if you liked it!! one comment is worth 10 kudos! <3


End file.
